


Study It Out

by NovaRasalas



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Friendship, Gen, the true bonding that we never got to see
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-24
Updated: 2019-02-24
Packaged: 2019-11-04 20:01:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,459
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17904695
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NovaRasalas/pseuds/NovaRasalas
Summary: Lance shows Keith his broadsword.





	Study It Out

**Author's Note:**

> I just wanted something light and innocent with these two. Also, in the series proper, we were only given a hint of their friendship, so I decided to fix that.
> 
> This particular story takes place not long after they begin their journey back to Earth.

“Aww...you’re adorable,” the young woman said as she stepped around Lance, her multitude of skirts swishing around her as she continued on her way towards the town’s market. The award-winning smile he wore wavered, then crumpled, as his shoulders slumped in despair.

It just wasn’t his day.

The team had landed on this planet to resupply and stretch their legs the day before. The planet itself was fairly cut off and out of the way, and this particular village even more so.

Small and unassuming, the town’s main feature seemed to be it’s bustling marketplace located at the heart of it all. They’d been told that is was the annual “gathering round”-- a time when local merchants and artisans traveled from town to town for a phebe, selling their wares and making connections. In short, they’d arrived in the right place at the right time.

But times change and empires fall, and now no one on the planet accepted the stockpile of GAC they’d been building over the course of their time in space. Not that it mattered too much, because the planet was so backwater that no official dealings had ever been done with that particular currency anyway.

Hunk, Allura, and Coran were trying their best to haggle and charm their way into securing food and other necessities. Lance had made a good effort to do the same, but something had been off about his methods. Try as he might, he was far less charming and more “adorable” or “cute”.

What it actually was, though, was embarrassing.

But there was no use in worrying about that now. With the rest of the team on task, he considered his schedule now freed up. Standing up straight and squaring his shoulders, he turned on his heel, intending to head out of the village and back to the Lions.

As he spun around, though, he spotted the one thing that he definitely did not want to deal with right now.

Leaning on a wall not 10 feet away was Keith, wearing a smirk indicating that he’d just witnessed all of Lance’s most recent rejection.

“I don’t want to hear about it,” he said, bristling as Keith’s smirk turned into a grin.

“I'm not saying anything!” Great, now he was laughing.

Sighing in defeat, Lance walked over and leaned against the wall as well, mirroring Keith's pose.

“I just...this used to be easier, ya know?” he lamented with a sigh.

“What? Talking to girls?” Keith scoffed. “What happened to 'Loverboy Lance'?”

“I...hey! That was just for the show and you know it!”

“Yeah...I know. And it’s the best thing I’ve ever seen.” He looked away and mumbled something that sounded suspiciously like ‘so glad I wasn’t there’.

Lance glared at him for a moment before deciding to end that particular argument before it started.

The truth was, though, it _was_ easier before.

He let his eyes settle to Keith’s arms, crossed over his chest, ever defensive, and then considered the red symbol emblazoned on Keith’s chestplate. Once upon a time, the appearance of the Voltron Paladins would have been a cause for celebration on most planets.

But here, and on others worlds, time had not done them any favors. They’d been dead and gone for years, and their sudden reappearance was now more cause for concern than anything else. They’d been run out of a few star systems already, branded as impostors.

On this planet, things were different, if only because the populace just plain didn’t care.

They’d been heroes, once. Now they were just…

Keith had caught him staring and was opening his mouth to say something about it.

“Tell me, Keith,” Lance said quickly as a distraction. “Tell me where I went wrong.”

“I don’t know a thing about that, Lance.” Keith’s smirk was back in place. He chuckled to himself. “You know that while you were busy chatting up girls, I was studying the blade.”

As he began to laugh at his own joke, time for Lance slowed to a crawl.

Keith was different now, that much was obvious. First point being that he was here, not yelling at Lance, and making jokes. The second was that he’d just given Lance something that he’d rarely given anyone: a perfect opening.

It was Lance’s turn to smirk as he pushed himself away from the wall, summoning his bayard.

“Oh yeah, well I’ll have you know that while you were studying the blade,” he began, with an air of overconfidence, “I was also studying the blade.”

With that, he allowed the bayard to take form, a brilliant flash of light fading away to reveal the Altean broadsword he’d first manifested all those months ago.

He grinned at Keith, enjoying the dumbfounded look now plastered on his face.

“I...I...how…”

“Don’t you remember? We were in the same blade class, ” Lance said as he tried, and failed, to hold back a giggle. “Hey, what was our blade homework?”

“That’s...incredible! Lance!” There was almost pure joy in Keith’s eyes as he stepped closer, which was a bit strange, if Lance was being honest. “When did this happen?”

“A while back,” he responded as he held the sword out for Keith to look at. “I never got to use it in battle, and I haven’t even really trained with it.”

Keith’s expression turned thoughtful as he reached out and gently touched the blade, running his fingers up the center. Lance blinked at him in mild confusion and the silence around them was quickly getting awkward.

“Follow me.” Keith demanded as he pulled his hand away.

“...what? Why?”

“Just...come on!”

With that, Keith turned and made his way down the street towards the edge of town, towards where their Lions were. Lance, with a puzzled look, let his bayard fade away and hurried after, both dreading what Keith might be planning, but curious to find out anyway.

They made their way through town at a quick pace, Keith leading them through back alleys and shortcuts. Lance kept his eyes on him as he did his best to keep up; he hadn’t managed to learn the layout of the town beyond the central marketplace, and if he lost track of Keith at this point, he’d be totally lost.

Still, it was a bit difficult to not get distracted in the bustle of the city life -- the same life that was going on in every other city on every other planet in the entire universe.

Down the first turn was a food stall, the owner quickly processing some sort of poor fish for the grill. Down another street was a group of women watching their young children play. As they passed, the group laughed, their voices chiming like bells, echoing off the high walls of the buildings that lined the street.

Still another turn took them past a flower shop, and even Keith had to slow down to look at this one. The shop could hardly been seen beyond the flowers, overflowing as they were from baskets and bushels and carts, all of them in every color you could imagine, and a few you couldn't. A flurry of activity surrounded the area as people hurriedly came and went from the storefront, each loading up products or taking hold of a cart to move it, most likely to the markets. As they passed by, they left a sweet and delicate scent in their wake, and Lance found himself yet again lamenting the fact that their money was no good here.

A glance at Keith told him that he was thinking something similar -- a splash of life and color in their lions would make the cold drabness of space the least bit more tolerable.

They moved on, though, and soon found themselves at the edge of town. The buildings began to thin out as they approached, allowing the warm, afternoon light from the planets twin stars to shine down onto the streets below.

Man-made structures and paved roads gave way to open countryside. In front of them was mostly flat grassland for as far as the eye could see, broken only by the nearby river that meandered it’s way through the landscape on it’s way towards town. The waters were cold and almost impossibly blue, its main sources being from the two mountain ranges the stood like rows of sentinels on either side of the valley.

The only things to mar the beauty of the place was their apparent destination. The Lions rose high above all else, their mechanical magnificence very much out of place. At the feet of the Green Lion, Shiro and Pidge were hunched over something, possibly planning their next move. Nearby, Kaltencker grazed.

Lance had be about to call out to them in greeting, when suddenly, from the general direction of Keith, was the unmistakable sound of a bayard taking sword form.

“Spar with me.”

Lance blinked at him at him dumbly for a moment before scrunching his face up in dismay.

“Really? That’s what this was about?”

“Yup.”

“Nope. Nah. I’m good.”

“...oh yeah? You're good, huh?” Keith placed a hand on his hip and regarded Lance with light amusement, a smirk on his face “I find that hard to believe. You should convince me.”

“What. I don’t…”

_Want to._

But even as he thought those words, he could see the joy in Keith eyes begin to fade, the previous excitement over learning that there was another sword user on the team beginning to wane. Lance couldn’t help but think back to all the times before when Keith would ask to train together, and how almost each time, Lance would turn him down.

He’d been caught up in that stupid rivalry then. Things were different now.

And so, secure and content in the knowledge that he was about to get his ass kicked, he summoned his bayard to him.

“Alright, fine,” he whined as his sword took form, “but I’ll have you know that my ego has already been bruised enough today, so maybe take it easy on me?”

Keith grinned as he took up a battle stance.

“I absolutely will not.”

~*~*~*~*

He’d expected it, really.

Every time he’d attempted sword training with Allura as his guide, he ended up flat on his back and humiliated, so why not with Keith too?

It wasn’t so bad, though. The grass was soft and the sky was nice to look at.

He heard a chuckle from somewhere just beyond his feet.

“You ok?’

A pitiful whine was his answer.

“Uh...ok..are you hurt?”

“...I’m ok.” he raised his arm and gave a thumbs up before wincing from the movement.’ “Ow.”

He heard Keith suck in a breath through his teeth.

“Sorry about that.”

The grass rustled as Keith stepped closer. Out of the corner of his eye, Lance saw the flash of light as he left his bayard return to its resting place.

“You know, Lance?” Keith started, pausing to lift his arms above his head and stretch. “You’re not half bad.”

Lance lifted his head just enough to fix him with a baleful look as he moved to sit on the ground next to him.

“What? What’s that look for?” Keith asked, bewildered.

“I...oh. Oh! I just uh…” he stammered out, looking away to stare are the sky once more. “I thought the follow up to that was something like ‘You were all bad’, or something.”

“Well, to be honest, you’re not exactly _good_ ," he replied with a soft smile,”but you definitely have potential.”

With that, he flopped back onto the grass, mirroring Lance’s prone pose. He shifted a bit to get comfortable before laying back to watch the clouds, sighing in contentment.

"Well, thanks man...I think”

“Oh, you’re welcome."

They laid in companionable silence for a few moments, the sounds of the rushing winds rustling the taller grasses and the gentle bubbling from the river the only things filling their ears.

“The sky is nice here,” Lance said, giving into the urge to break the moment.

“Mmhmm”, Keith murmured. “It’s almost just like home.”

“Yeah.” Lance swallowed around the sudden lump in his throat. Even though they’d been on their way back for weeks, it was still hard to believe it was actually happening. How much had changed since then? On Earth? Himself? Just thinking about it filled him with every emotion he could could feel.

He cleared his throat.

“I can’t wait to see it again.”

“Me too,” Keith agreed. “First thing I’m gonna do is ride out at night, get away from all the lights and just...look at the stars, ya know?”

“The stars?” Lance scoffed, turning to fix Keith with a look. “We’ve been _in_ the stars, man.”

“Yeah, but-” Keith turned to look at Lance “-these aren’t our stars. When it gets dark here tonight, you won’t see Orion, or the Big Dipper, or any of them that we know.”

“That...ok. That’s true.” He turned back to the sky, letting his eyes follow the clouds as they slowly moved by overhead. “And the suns are always different out here, too. I...I can’t wait to get back to Cuba. Soak up the sun on the beach. Our sun.”

“Sounds nice.” Keith let out a small, rueful laugh. “You know what? I’ve never been to the beach. Not on Earth anyway.”

“...no way. How is that even possible?”

“I mean...Arizona’s kind of lacking in oceans, so…”

“So? That means you’re coming to Varadero with me.”

“Lance…”

“Keith. And yes, you are. So’s everyone else. I’m scheduling a vacation for us all right now.” He raised a hand, holding up fingers as he began counting off activities. "One: surfing. Two: beach babes. Three: pizza shack...four: beach babes. We’re gonna relax and have fun.”

“Yeah...sounds like,” Keith said with a laugh. “Maybe we’ll actually go swimming this time. I never bothered with the pool on the ship again.”

“Ugh..for real. Though I’m not looking forward to looking at your pale, scrawny legs again. Maybe you can work on your tan while were there.”

“Oh whatever!” Keith complained, rolling his eyes, before they both started laughing.

“Well, are you in?” Lance asked as they caught their breath again.

Keith took a moment, giving a thoughtful, drawn out ‘hmm’ as if it was a difficult decision to make.

“...yeah. I’m in.”

He raised his arm, hand clenched in a fist and turned toward Lance. Fist bump. Something they’d all picked up for Hunk recently.

Never one to leave a bro hanging, Lance responded in kind, knocking his fist against Keith’s; the fist on the arm that Keith had lightly injured in their sparring match.

“Ow.”

“Ha ha...sorry.”

**Author's Note:**

> I'd like to think that a few minutes later, Shiro walks over and kinda just...faceplants into the ground on the other side of Keith in bro-solidarity.
> 
> Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed it!


End file.
